Where is my Wacky Wall Walker?
I have been behaving with my choice of breakfast cereals in recent months in an effort to eat a little healthier. Not that I have eaten cereal all that often in recent years, it convenience over eggs and bacon has brought it back to my table.
Gone are sugar-laden favorites of my youth. They have been replaced with Cheerios, Rice Krispies and Raisin Bran.
Occasionally I’m naughty and get the Honey Nut Cheerios.
While not as tasty as the Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops of years past, these newer selections are as filling and satisfying.
Last week I decided to give in to my inner child and bought a box of a sweetened cereal I loved many years ago.
The wonderful nuggets of sugary goodness were as good as I remembered, but when I opened the box something was different.
There was not a toy in the bottom. That’s fine, because I really don’t need a useless toy that will break in five minutes, but it still bothered me.
I remember waking up on Saturday mornings and rushing to the kitchen to open a new box of cereal to dig the toy out of the bottom.
If my family was lucky, I stopped to wash my hands before they excavated my treasure from the depths of cereal land. Most of the time, however, my family wasn’t lucky – nobody ever got sick though, so I guess everything worked out fine.
Last week there was no digging through the cereal.
If I wanted a prize, I would have to collect codes inside the box then go online to redeem them.
What is wrong with this picture?
Those Saturday mornings of long ago were like mini Christmases. Now kids have to coax their parents into buying three or four boxes of cereal to get a bad prize.
When I was younger I liked the instant gratification cereal-box prizes gave me. When I wanted to save up stuff to get junk, I drowned gallons of Kool-Aid and saved every single packet for the single, stinking point on the back.
After countless gallons of the stuff, I finally save enough for a T-shirt or some plastic cups — and the water bill was through the roof from making so much Kool-Aid.
Incidentally, there are no longer points on the back of the packets of Kool-Aid, which I believe is another injustice to today’s youth.
Put the prizes back in cereal and put the points back on Kool-Aid packaging.
The prizes bring joy to kids and the Kool-Aid points will get them interested in math – although I never had to do more than basic arithmetic.
I always counted my points three or four times because I was afraid there would be somebody at the factory that would keep my points and not send my stuff because my count was off by one point.
I did great in math during elementary school. If Kool-Aid required me to perform quadratic equations, I would have done good in high school math too.
Sure prizes will give parents more stuff to clean up around the house, but look on the bright side. After the Wacky Wall Walker loses its stickiness and can no longer walk down walls they can throw the thing away and not lose any money.
The prizes are fun, educational and fiscally responsible. They need to come back.
